The Riverman

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Riverman

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"No," replied Orde, " it's a matter of reinvestment." He hesitated.
"It's a dead secret, which I don't want to get out, but I'm thinking
of buying some western timber for Bobby when he grows up."

Carroll laughed softly.

"You so relieve my mind," she smiled at him. "I was afraid you'd
decided on the street-car-driver idea. Why, sweetheart, you know
perfectly well we could go back to the little house next the church
and be as happy as larks."

XXXII

In the meantime Newmark had closed his desk, picked his hat from the
nail, and marched precisely down the street to Heinzman's office.
He found the little German in. Newmark demanded a private
interview, and without preliminary plunged into the business that
had brought him. He had long since taken Heinzman's measure, as,
indeed, he had taken the measure of every other man with whom he did
or was likely to do business.

"Heinzman," said he abruptly, "my partner wants to raise seventy-
five thousand dollars for his personal use. I have agreed to get
him that money from the firm."

Heinzman sat immovable, his round eyes blinking behind his big
spectacles.

"Proceed," said he shrewdly.

"As security in case he cannot pay the notes the firm will have to
give, he has signed an agreement to turn over to me his undivided
one-half interest in our enterprises."

"Vell? You vant to borrow dot money of me?" asked Heinzman. "I
could not raise it."

"I know that perfectly well," replied Newmark coolly. "You are
going to have difficulty meeting your July notes, as it is."

Heinzman hardly seemed to breathe, but a flicker of red blazed in
his eye.

"Proceed," he repeated non-committally, after a moment. "I intend,"
went on Newmark, "to furnish this money myself. It must, however,
seem to be loaned by another. I want you to lend this money on
mortgage."

"What for?" asked

"For a one tenth of Orde's share in case he does not meet those
notes."

"But he vill meet the notes," objected Heinzman. "You are a
prosperous concern. I know somethings of YOUR business, also."

"He thinks he will," rejoined Newmark grimly. "I will merely point
out to you that his entire income is from the firm, and that from
this income he must save twenty-odd thousand a year.

"If the firm has hard luck--" said Heinzman.

"Exactly," finished Newmark.

"Vy you come to me?" demanded Heinzman at length.

"Well, I'm offering you a chance to get even with Orde. I don't
imagine you love him?"

"Vat's de matter mit my gettin' efen with you, too?" cried Heinzman.
"Ain't you beat me out at Lansing?"

Newmark smiled coldly under his clipped moustache.

"I'm offering you the chance of making anywhere from thirty to fifty
thousand dollars."

"Perhaps. And suppose this liddle scheme don't work out?"

"And," pursued Newmark calmly, "I'll carry you over in your present
obligations." He suddenly hit the arm of his chair with his
clenched fist. "Heinzman, if you don't make those July payments,
what's to become of you? Where's your timber and your mills and
your new house--and that pretty daughter of yours?"

Heinzman winced visibly.

"I vill get an extension of time," said he feebly.

"Will you?" countered Newmark.

The two men looked each other in the eye for a moment.

"Vell, maybe," laughed Heinzman uneasily. "It looks to me like a
winner."

"All right, then," said Newmark briskly. "I'll make out a mortgage
at ten per cent for you, and you'll lend the money on it. At the
proper time, if things happen that way, you will foreclose. That's
all you have to do with it. Then, when the timber land comes to you
under the foreclose, you will reconvey an undivided nine-tenths'
interest--for proper consideration, of course, and without recording
the deed."

Heinzman laughed with assumed lightness.

"Suppose I fool you," said he. "I guess I joost keep it for
mineself."

Newmark looked at him coldly.

"I wouldn't," he advised. "You may remember the member from Lapeer
County in that charter fight? And the five hundred dollars for his
vote? Try it on, and see how much evidence I can bring up. It's
called bribery in this State, and means penitentiary usually."

"You don't take a joke," complained Heinzman.

Newmark arose.

"It's understood, then?" he asked.

"How so I know you play fair?" asked the German.

"You don't. It's a case where we have to depend more or less on
each other. But I don't see what you stand to lose--and anyway
you'll get carried over those July payments," Newmark reminded him.

Heinzman was plainly uneasy and slightly afraid of these new waters
in which he swam.

"If you reduce the firm's profits, he iss going to suspect," he
admonished.

"Who said anything about reducing the firm's profits?" said Newmark
impatiently. "If it does work out that way, we'll win a big thing;
if it does not, we'll lose nothing."

He nodded to Heinzman and left the office. His demeanour was as dry
and precise as ever. No expression illuminated his impassive
countenance. If he felt the slightest uneasiness over having
practically delivered his intentions to the keeping of another, he
did not show it. For one thing, an accomplice was absolutely
essential. And, too, he held the German by his strongest passions--
his avarice, his dread of bankruptcy, his pride, and his fear of the
penitentiary. As he entered the office of his own firm, his eye
fell on Orde's bulky form seated at the desk. He paused
involuntarily, and a slight shiver shook his frame from head to
foot--the dainty, instinctive repulsion of a cat for a large
robustious dog. Instantly controlling himself, he stepped forward.

"I've made the loan," he announced.

Orde looked up with interest.

"The banks wouldn't touch northern peninsula," said Newmark
steadily, "so I had to go to private individuals."

"So you said. Don't care who deals it out," laughed Orde.

"Thayer backed out, so finally I got the whole amount from
Heinzman," Newmark announced.

"Didn't know the old Dutchman was that well off," said Orde, after a
slight pause.

"Can't tell about those secretive old fellows," said Newmark.

Orde hesitated.

"I didn't know he was friendly enough to lend us money."

"Business is business," replied Newmark.

XXXIII

There exists the legend of an eastern despot who, wishing to rid
himself of a courtier, armed the man and shut him in a dark room.
The victim knew he was to fight something, but whence it was to
come, when, or of what nature he was unable to guess. In the event,
while groping tense for an enemy, he fell under the fatal fumes of
noxious gases.

From the moment Orde completed the secret purchase of the California
timber lands from Trace, he became an unwitting participant in one
of the strangest duels known to business history. Newmark opposed
to him all the subtleties, all the ruses and expedients to which his
position lent itself. Orde, sublimely unconscious, deployed the
magnificent resources of strength, energy, organisation, and
combative spirit that animated his pioneer's soul. The occult
manoeuverings of Newmark called out fresh exertions on the part of
Orde.

Newmark worked under this disadvantage: he had carefully to avoid
the slightest appearance of an attitude inimical to the firm's very
best prosperity. A breath of suspicion would destroy his plans. If
the smallest untoward incident should ever bring it clearly before
Orde that Newmark might have an interest in reducing profits, he
could not fail to tread out the logic of the latter's devious ways.
For this reason Newmark could not as yet fight even in the twilight.
He did not dare make bad sales, awkward transactions. In spite of
his best efforts, he could not succeed, without the aid of chance,
in striking a blow from which Orde could not recover. The profits
of the first year were not quite up to the usual standard, but they
sufficed. Newmark's finesse cut in two the firm's income of the
second year. Orde roused himself. With his old-time energy of
resource, he hurried the woods work until an especially big cut gave
promise of recouping the losses of the year before. Newmark found
himself struggling against a force greater than he had imagined it
to be. Blinded and bound, it nevertheless made head against his
policy. Newmark was forced to a temporary quiescence. He held
himself watchful, intent, awaiting the opportunity which chance
should bring.

Chance seemed by no means in haste. The end of the fourth year
found Newmark puzzled. Orde had paid regularly the interest on his
notes. How much he had been able to save toward the redemption of
the notes themselves his partner was unable to decide. It depended
entirely on how much the Ordes had disbursed in living expenses,
whether or not Orde had any private debts, and whether or not he had
private resources. In the meantime Newmark contented himself with
tying up the firm's assets in such a manner as to render it
impossible to raise money on its property when the time should come.

What Orde regarded as a series of petty annoyances had made the
problem of paying for the California timber a matter of greater
difficulty than he had supposed it would be. A pressure whose
points of support he could not place was closing slowly on him.
Against this pressure he exerted himself. It made him a trifle
uneasy, but it did not worry him. The margin of safety was not as
broad as he had reckoned, but it existed. And in any case, if worse
came to worst, he could always mortgage the California timber for
enough to make up the difference--and more. Against this expedient,
however, he opposed a sentimental obstinacy. It was Bobby's, and he
objected to encumbering it. In fact, Orde was capable of a
prolonged and bitter struggle to avoid doing so. Nevertheless, it
was there--an asset. A loan on its security would, with what he had
set aside, more than pay the notes on the northern peninsula
stumpage. Orde felt perfectly easy in his mind. He was in the
position of many of our rich men's sons who, quite sincerely and
earnestly, go penniless to the city to make their way. They live on
their nine dollars a week, and go hungry when they lose their jobs.
They stand on their own feet, and yet--in case of severe illness or
actual starvation--the old man is there! It gives them a courage to
be contented on nothing. So Orde would have gone to almost any
lengths to keep free "Bobby's tract," but it stood always between
himself and disaster. And a loan on western timber could be paid
off just as easily as a loan on eastern timber; when you came right
down to that. Even could he have known his partner's intentions,
they would, on this account, have caused him no uneasiness, however
angry they would have made him, or however determined to break the
partnership. Even though Newmark destroyed utterly the firm's
profits for the remaining year and a half the notes had to run, he
could not thereby ruin Orde's chances. A loan on the California
timber would solve all problems now. In this reasoning Orde would
have committed the mistake of all large and generous temperaments
when called upon to measure natures more subtle than their own. He
would have underestimated both Newmark's resources and his own grasp
of situations.*

* The author has considered it useless to burden the course of the
narrative with a detailed account of Newmark's financial manoeuvres.
Realising, however, that a large class of his readers might be
interested in the exact particulars, he herewith gives a sketch of
the transactions.

It will be remembered that at the time--1878--Orde first came in
need of money for the purpose of buying the California timber, the
firm, Newmark and Orde, owned in the northern peninsula 300,000,000
feet of pine. On this they had paid $150,000, and owed still a like
amount. They borrowed $75,000 on it, giving a note secured by
mortgage due in 1883. Orde took this, giving in return his note
secured by the Boom Company's stock. In 1879 and 1880 they made the
two final payments on the timber; so that by the latter date they
owned the land free of encumbrance save for the mortgage of $75,000.
Since Newmark's plan had always contemplated the eventual
foreclosure of this mortgage, it now became necessary further to
encumber the property. Otherwise, since a property worth
considerably above $300,000 carried only a $75,000 mortgage, it
would be possible, when the latter came due, to borrow a further sum
on a second mortgage with which to meet the obligations of the
first. Therefore Newmark, in 1881, approached Orde with the request
that the firm raise $70,000 by means of a second mortgage on the
timber. This $70,000 he proposed to borrow personally, giving his
note due in 1885 and putting up the same collateral as Orde had--
that is to say, his stock in the Boom Company. To this Orde could
hardly in reason oppose an objection, as it nearly duplicated his
own transaction of 1878. Newmark therefore, through Heinzman, lent
this sum to himself.

It may now be permitted to forecast events in the line of Newmark's
reasoning.

If his plans should work out, this is what would happen: in 1883 the
firm's note for $75,000 would come due. Orde would be unable to pay
it. Therefore at once his stock in the Boom Company would become
the property of Newmark and Orde. Newmark would profess himself
unable to raise enough from the firm to pay the mortgage. The
second mortgage from which he had drawn his personal loan would
render it impossible for the firm to raise more money on the land.
A foreclosure would follow. Through Heinzman, Newmark would buy in.
As he had himself loaned the money to himself--again through
Heinzman--on the second mortgage, the latter would occasion him no
loss.

The net results of the whole transaction would be: first, that
Newmark would have acquired personally the 300,000,000 feet of
northern peninsula timber; and, second, that Orde's personal share
in the stock company would flow be held in partnership by the two.
Thus, in order to gain so large a stake, it would pay Newmark to
suffer considerable loss jointly with Orde in the induced
misfortunes of the firm.

Incidentally it might be remarked that Newmark, of course, purposed
paying his own note to the firm when it should fall due in 1885,
thus saving for himself the Boom Company stock which he had put up
as collateral.

Affairs stood thus in the autumn before the year the notes would
come due. The weather had been beautiful. A perpetual summer
seemed to have embalmed the world in its forgetfulness of times and
seasons. Navigation remained open through October and into
November. No severe storms had as yet swept the lakes. The barge
and her two tows had made one more trip than had been thought
possible. It had been the intention to lay them up for the winter,
but the weather continued so mild that Orde suggested they be laden
with a consignment for Jones and Mabley, of Chicago.

"Did intend to ship by rail," said he. "They're all 'uppers,' so it
would pay all right. But we can save all kinds of money by water,
and they ought to skip over there in twelve to fifteen hours."

Accordingly, the three vessels were laid alongside the wharves at
the mill, and as fast as possible the selected lumber was passed
into their holds. Orde departed for the woods to start the cutting
as soon as the first belated snow should fall.

This condition seemed, however, to delay. During each night it grew
cold. The leaves, after their blaze and riot of colour, turned
crisp and crackly and brown. Some of the little, still puddles were
filmed with what was almost, but not quite ice. A sheen of frost
whitened the house roofs and silvered each separate blade of grass
on the lawns. But by noon the sun, rising red in the veil of smoke
that hung low in the snappy air, had mellowed the atmosphere until
it lay on the cheek like a caress. No breath of wind stirred.
Sounds came clearly from a distance. Long V-shaped flights of geese
swept athwart the sky, very high up, but their honking came faintly
to the ear. And yet, when the sun, swollen to the great dimensions
of the rising moon, dipped blood-red through the haze; the first
premonitory tingle of cold warned one that the grateful warmth of
the day had been but an illusion of a season that had gone. This
was not summer, but, in the quaint old phrase, Indian summer, and
its end would be as though the necromancer had waved his wand.

To Newmark, sitting at his desk, reported Captain Floyd of the steam
barge NORTH STAR.

"All loaded by noon, sir," he said.

Newmark looked up in surprise.

"Well, why do you tell me?" he inquired.

"I want your orders."

"My orders? Why?"

"This is a bad time of year," explained Captain Floyd, "and the
storm signal's up. All the signs are right for a blow."

Newmark whirled in his chair.

"A blow!" he cried. "What of it? You don't come in every time it
blows, do you?"

"You don't know the lakes, sir, at this time of year," insisted
Captain Floyd.

"Are you afraid?" sneered Newmark.

Captain Floyd's countenance burned a dark red.

"I only want your orders," was all he said. "I thought we might
wait to see."

"Then go," snapped Newmark. "That lumber must get to the market.
You heard Mr. Orde's orders to sail as soon as you were loaded."

Captain Floyd nodded curtly and went out without further comment.

Newmark arose and looked out of the window. The sun shone as
balmily soft as ever. English sparrows twittered and fought
outside. The warm smell of pine shingles rose from the street.
Only close down to the horizon lurked cold, flat, greasy-looking
clouds; and in the direction of the Government flag-pole he caught
the flash of red from the lazily floating signal. He was little
weatherwise, and he shook his head sceptically. Nevertheless it was
a chance, and he took it, as he had taken a great many others.

XXXIV

To Carroll's delight, Orde returned unexpectedly from the woods late
that night. He was so busy these days that she welcomed any chance
to see him. Much to his disappointment, Bobby had been taken duck-
hunting by his old friend, Mr. Kincaid. Next morning, however, Orde
told Carroll his stay would be short and that his day would be
occupied.

"I'd take old Prince and get some air," he advised. "You're too
much indoors. Get some friend and drive around. It's fine and
blowy out, and you'll get some colour in your cheeks."

After breakfast Carroll accompanied her husband to the front door.
When they opened it a blast of air rushed in, whirling some dead
leaves with it.

"I guess the fine weather's over," said Orde, looking up at the sky.

A dull lead colour had succeeded the soft gray of the preceding
balmy days. The heavens seemed to have settled down closer to the
earth. A rising wind whistled through the branches of the big maple
trees, snatching the remaining leaves in handfuls and tossing them
into the air. The tops swayed like whips. Whirlwinds scurried
among the piles of dead leaves on the lawns, scattering them,
chasing them madly around and around in circles.

"B-r-r-r!" shivered Carroll. "Winter's coming."

She kept herself busy about the house all the morning; ate her lunch
in solitude. Outside, the fierce wind, rising in a crescendo
shriek, howled around the eaves. The day darkened, but no rain
fell. At last Carroll resolved to take her husband's advice. She
stopped for Mina Heinzman, and the two walked around to the stable,
where the men harnessed old Prince into the phaeton.

They drove, the wind at their backs, across the drawbridge, past the
ship-yards, and out beyond the mills to the Marsh Road. There, on
either side the causeway, miles and miles of cat-tails and reeds
bent and recovered under the snatches of the wind. Here and there
showed glimpses of ponds or little inlets, the surface of the water
ruffled and dark blue. Occasionally one of these bayous swung in
across the road. Then the two girls could see plainly the fan-like
cat's-paws skittering here and there as though panic-stricken by the
swooping, invisible monster that pursued them.

Carroll and Mina Heinzman had a good time. They liked each other
very much, and always saw a great deal to laugh at in the things
about them and in the subjects about which they talked. When,
however, they turned toward home, they were forced silent by the
mighty power of the wind against them. The tears ran from their
eyes as though they were crying; they had to lower their heads.
Hardly could Carroll command vision clear enough to see the road
along which she was driving. This was really unnecessary, for
Prince was buffeted to a walk. Thus they crawled along until they
reached the turn-bridge, where the right-angled change in direction
gave them relief. The river was full of choppy waves, considerable
in size. As they crossed, the SPRITE darted beneath them, lowering
her smokestack as she went under the bridge.

They entered Main Street, where was a great banging and clanging of
swinging signs and a few loose shutters. All the sidewalk displays
of vegetables and other goods had been taken in, and the doors,
customarily wide open, were now shut fast. This alone lent to the
street quite a deserted air, which was emphasised by the fact that
actually not a rig of any sort stood at the curbs. Up the empty
roadway whirled one after the other clouds of dust hurried by the
wind.

"I wonder where all the farmers' wagons are?" marvelled the
practical Mina. "Surely they would not stay home Saturday afternoon
just for this wind!"

Opposite Randall's hardware store her curiosity quite mastered her.

"Do stop!" she urged Carroll. "I want to run in and see what's the
matter."

She was gone but a moment, and returned, her eyes shining with
excitement.

"Oh, Carroll!" she cried, "there are three vessels gone ashore off
the piers. Everybody's gone to see."

"Jump in!" said Carroll. "We'll drive out. Perhaps they'll get out
the life-saving crew."

They drove up the plank road over the sand-hill, through the beech
woods, to the bluff above the shore. In the woods they were
somewhat sheltered from the wind, although even there the crash of
falling branches and the whirl of twigs and dead leaves advertised
that the powers of the air were abroad; but when they topped the
last rise, the unobstructed blast from the open Lake hit them square
between the eyes.

Probably a hundred vehicles of all descriptions were hitched to
trees just within the fringe of woods. Carroll, however, drove
straight ahead until Prince stood at the top of the plank road that
led down to the bath houses. Here she pulled up.

Carroll saw the lake, slate blue and angry, with white-capped
billows to the limit of vision. Along the shore were rows and rows
of breakers, leaping, breaking, and gathering again, until they were
lost in a tumble of white foam that rushed and receded on the sands.
These did not look to be very large until she noticed the twin piers
reaching out from the river's mouth. Each billow, as it came in,
rose sullenly above them, broke tempestuously to overwhelm the
entire structure of their ends, and ripped inshore along their
lengths, the crest submerging as it ran every foot of the massive
structures. The piers and the light-houses at their ends looked
like little toys, and the compact black crowd of people on the shore
below were as small as Bobby's tin soldiers.

"Look there--out farther!" pointed Mina.

Carroll looked, and rose to her feet in excitement

Three little toy ships--or so they seemed compared to the mountains
of water--lay broadside-to, just inside the farthest line of
breakers. Two were sailing schooners. These had been thrown on
their beam ends, their masts pointing at an angle toward the beach.
Each wave, as it reached, stirred them a trifle, then broke in a
deluge of water that for a moment covered their hulls completely
from sight. With a mighty suction the billow drained away, carrying
with it wreckage. The third vessel was a steam barge. She, too,
was broadside to the seas, but had caught in some hole in the bar so
that she lay far down by the head. The shoreward side of her upper
works had, for some freakish reason, given away first, so now the
interior of her staterooms and saloons was exposed to view as in the
cross-section of a model ship. Over her, too, the great waves
hurled themselves, each carrying away its spoil. To Carroll it
seemed fantastically as though the barge were made of sugar, and
that each sea melted her precisely as Bobby loved to melt the lump
in his chocolate by raising and lowering it in a spoon.

And the queer part of it all was that these waves, so mighty in
their effects, appeared to the woman no different from those she had
often watched in the light summer blows that for a few hours raise
the "white caps" on the lake. They came in from the open in the
same swift yet deliberate ranks; they gathered with the same
leisurely pauses; they broke with the same rush and roar. They
seemed no larger, but everything else had been struck small--the
tiny ships, the toy piers, the ant-like swarm of people on the
shore. She looked on it as a spectacle. It had as yet no human
significance.

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